Indiana on sidelines as 'peers' try to offer free college

11:50 PM,
Mar. 2, 2014

A student walks past a painting Thursday at Ivy Hall on the campus of Ivy Tech Community College-Lafayette. Other states are proposing the idea of offering free community college to high school graduates.

Written by

Hayleigh Colombo
hcolombo@jconline.com

Indiana has little to brag about when it comes to the percentage of adults with college degrees.

Only nine states have a worse college attainment rate than Indiana's 33.8 percent of residents 25 years and older with at least an associate degree - abysmal for a state with two Big Ten research universities and a major medical school.

Indiana's peers near the bottom of the college attainment ranking are taking bold steps to improve their position. By 2020, Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce predicts, 65 percent of jobs will require higher education credentials. ...